Lincoln City Council's Imprisonment

A city-wide reform program under Lincoln
Mayor Andrew J. Sawyer in 1887 culminated in legal maneuvering
which imprisoned both Sawyer and eleven members of the city council
in the Douglas County Jail in Omaha. Following a move against
gambling interests in Lincoln by newly elected Mayor Sawyer,
complaints were lodged against Police Judge A. L. Parsons, charging
that he had not accounted for all funds collected by him as fines.
After an investigation indicated that the charges of corruption
were true, the city council discovered it lacked the power to
act. A city ordinance was amended and the police judge position
in question was declared vacant.

Parsons and his attorneys then appealed
to the U.S. Circuit Court in St. Louis, charging that Parsons
was the victim of an ex post facto law and that the city council
had no jurisdiction. Circuit Judge David J. Brewer issued a restraining
order; and Mayor Sawyer and city council members stood trial
in federal court in Omaha for violating the order. They were
found guilty, and (when fines assessed against them were not
paid) went to jail.

They spent the first few hours with the
other prisoners in the Douglas County Jail, but were soon detained
separately. After six days they were removed from "jail"
and allowed to temporarily return home. Meanwhile the matter
had been taken to the U.S. Supreme Court and President Grover
Cleveland had been petitioned. On January 10, 1888, the Supreme
Court ruled that charges against the mayor and council members
be dropped because the circuit judge had acted without jurisdiction.